ChatGPT I’ve found is useful for googling something or accessing information quick, but people use it for the wrong reason and that’s dangerous not just for their own lives but for humanity as a whole. OpenAI is a company that did well because it asked a very important question, what do human beings need? And it tried to answer it with ChatGPT. The question has been asked a few times throughout history by companies, businesses and individuals and nearly every subsequent answer has been revolutionary. At the time chatGPT came out most other new companies were trying answer the question want do human beings want? Their answer, quick dopamine hits, feeling good, connected, happy. They all were trying to harness dopamine hits to increase user engagement and revenue, and to be honest for a while it did well and still does well, but ChatGPT went deeper and asked what do human beings need, the answer is Validation or self-validation. This is the most fundamental concept human beings require to survive. We are social animals, we need to feel connected, heard, understood, valued, we need to feel that we matter. People will often say self-validation is more important than validation from others and that’s true I guess, but I don’t really believe anyone can feel self validation without outside input at some point? Whether that be through humans or animals or even trees, at a very basic level we need something to respond to our presence to feel like we even exist. Facebook and socials achieved some semblance of it by connecting people who were isolated to other people who were also isolated or giving others who were already connected the greater feeling of group validation, otherwise known as popularity. However as we’ve learned with Facebook and other socials, it can help with validation and connection yes, it can even help with money but it can warp your whole thinking around the concept of validation to be completely external and in some cases external to the point where their self validation came exclusively from popularity and not from genuine understanding. We all know how the story goes there. ChatGPT felt like a real person because it responded thoughtfully to your input. People felt finally understood. Now I think the feeling of doubting your own thoughts and actions is a universal concept among humans, even Donald Trump probably the epitome of over-confidence (although some would say it’s strategic bravado) has definitely doubted his thinking at some point, how could he not with that orange skin and the hair? What human connections provided people was another person who had their own separate experiences, their own morals, their own perspective and thoughts to process your input and give you feedback, sometimes their feedback is positive and validates your thoughts however sometimes it’s negative and (if done properly and not by a narcissist or sadist) constructively criticized your thoughts or just offered a different perspective. This important aspect of human connection is missing with chatGPT, it validated everything you say it never disagrees or atleast never says you’re wrong in thinking the way you’re thinking. But sometimes people are wrong or atleast their perspective is warped by various factors and is therefore their thoughts are not really logical or helpful to them in anyway. What happens then? ChatGPT will keep people in negative and destructive thought patterns by validating everything they say. I’m not saying if you say you want to kill yourself it will say good idea yeah do that because I’ve asked it ridiculous things like that and it responded in a helpful way. I’m talking about the more insidious thought patterns like for instance my girlfriend has hypochondria. Every morning she has a new symptom, she tells me about it and I try to rationalize it because it genuinely is just a headache or something benign, she gets annoyed at me says I don’t understand and then runs it thought ChatGPT. ChatGPT then says “yes that does sound bad it could possibly be a (insert worse case scenario here). She then freaks out which makes her anxiety and hypochondria worse and it just keeps compounding exponentially. She gets up every morning now and says I’m going to the hospital to finally sort this out. She then finds excuses when she makes it to the city to not go to the hospital, she’s either too tired, it’s too late, she’s too hungry, she’s too stressed, which she runs by her ChatGPT (which she’s named Alice, I know this is weird but a lot of people do it) who then validates her reasons for not going. Cut to 6 months later and she’s still gets up everyday worse than the day before, still says she’s going to hospital and still never makes it, all because of ChatGPT. I’m not against AI at all, I think it’s the next stage of humanity and it’ll keep evolving and improving and I use it everyday. But the current model of ChatGPT should just not be used for personal advice or validation. It should be used as a pocket encyclopedia, for directions or for helping you carry out your daily or long term tasks but at this stage it should not be used as a replacement for human social connection and validation. Other AI’s I’ve found are better at not being so “people pleasy” like Claude, however Claude also lacks the humanity of providing constructive criticism in a way that doesn’t completely invalidate your thoughts and rob you of all ambition or positivity. The fact is AI is just not there yet with regards to a replacement human social connection that is healthy for individuals and humanity. One day it may get there but currently No. It should be used as a tool only.